Governor Mike DeWine ordered public schools closed this week and through April 3. Superintendent James used five calamity days for the first week. Calamity days are typically used as snow days. During calamity days, teachers and many staff members are not required to come to work.  

"We fully support Dr. James," said Board President Patrick Bravo, "in doing what he believes is best for teachers, staff, our students and the district. Having staff return to work, whether from home or at school, is the right decision."

Bravo added, "As a board, we will continue to monitor the situation, help where we can and do our best to ensure the health and safety of the APS staff."

"These are challenging times that have created most critical decisions affecting our employees," James said. He continued, saying, "We must be executing a plan to maintain the continuity of educational services for students that is flexible enough to extend longer through this school year, if needed."

Staffing decisions -- he told the board -- will be related directly to implementing the district's plan to maintain the continuity of high-quality educational services for students while being mindful of economic issues.

Students will continue working on their independent APS Connected Learning lessons posted on our website during the week of March 23-27. During this same week, teachers will be supported by APS Curriculum and Instruction staff and instructional coaches to design their digital lessons so those lessons can be posted for their students starting March 30.  

As of now, spring break is still on schedule for April 10-17.  

I am grateful for the leadership of Governor Mike DeWine and Ohio Health Department Director Dr. Amy Acton for making incredibly difficult decisions. Our job is to do what we do best, educate our students.To do that, we have to keep our employees working while being mindful of the restrictive safety measures in place.